Family of late, great Du Quoin resident Frank Brown gifts mining replicas to city hall
Frank Brown was 81 when he passed away on Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2009, leaving behind a mining career that included 14 years at the Green Diamond Mine in Marissa and 25 years as a machinist at the Captain Mine near Cutler.
Part of his legacy to wife Betty - who survives - his four children and now the City of Du Quoin are handcrafted woodworking and machined pieces that to this reporter are nothing short of priceless.
His pieces passed down to family members include hunting knives, clocks, a working replica of a Civil War-era Gatling gun, cannons, swings, lawn chairs and wooden toys.
And a wooden bulldozer and track hoe whose detail includes working wooden hardwood tracks flawlessly pinned together, hydraulics, pivoting blades and buckets and great detail down to the controls inside the cab. They look exactly like the behemoth machines he worked around in mining.
Last fall, Mrs. Brown contacted the Du Quoin Evening Call and asked this writer to help her find a repository for these two handcrafted pieces. A very gracious and beautiful lady who understands how life works knew she wouldn't be able to stay in their home alongside the First Baptist Church in Du Quoin where they attended much longer. "I need to get them out of my home and donate them. Other people need to enjoy them."
The Coal Museum at West Frankfort? No. Southern Illinois University? Not really. The coal technology programs at John A. Logan or Rend Lake? Nope.
They need to be at city hall in Du Quoin surrounded by the hundreds of photographs that represent Du Quoin's great history.
Mayor Rex Duncan agreed. He went to her home and looked at the pieces. Like this reporter, he was in awe of the workmanship that went into each piece. He became committed to making city hall their permanent home for the next generation to enjoy in loving memory of Frank Brown. He measured the pieces and decided they needed to be in an oaken display case that matched the character of the replicas. The search has taken five months, but in recent days he found a beautiful display cabinet at the Herrin Public Library, which was being sold to make room for new displays.
It was purchased as an investment in preserving the memory of this great man and an investment in our heritage.
Newspaper staff member Mike Allabastro drove the newspaper's large cargo van to the Herrin Public Library. Mayor Duncan, newspaper creative designer Paul Lilly and this reporter drove together and met him there.
The entire case is glass and we were looking at no less than a thousand years of bad luck if we broke it. The case was carefully loaded into the van, covered and tied down. We headed back to Du Quoin. With the help of city hall staff members the case was unloaded and carefully placed in the northwest corner of the council chambers.
That was followed by a 1 p.m. meeting with son Rex Brown at the Brown home where pieces -- each weighing about 50-60 pounds -- were very carefully pulled from their finished basement and driven to city hall where they were maneuvered (with some luck) into the case. Locks on the rear doors were snapped into place. The display will be completed in the coming weeks with photographs of the Captain Mine and Mr. Brown, a plaque commemorating the gift and possibly a handful of small mining artifacts to complement the bulldozer and track hoe.
Mrs. Brown and her son, Rex, came to city hall at 10 a.m. Wednesday morning to witness the progress.
Betty talked about Frank's love of family that includes four children, the Captain mine and woodworking. Son Rex is a homebuilder now constructing a new home near Woodlawn. Mayor Duncan talked about his wife Linda's work in the office at the Arch of Illinois Coal Co.'s Streamline Mine, the Captain Mine. They had common friends and a common respect for the coal mining industry.
Mrs. Brown was thrilled by the outcome, saying her husband would be very proud. "It's very classy," she said.
The display case is already well traveled, covered in the fingerprints of some third graders who were guests of the city council on Monday.
It was just a feel-good morning about a man we will never forget.